Introduction | The Full-time Masters Program (MP) | MP Admission Requirements | MP Curriculum | MP Homestudy | MP Guidelines and Support | A Masters Program Report

The FPMT Masters Program in Buddhist Studies of Sutra and Tantra (MP), FPMT’s most advanced education program, is the unique design of Lama Thubten Yeshe. Developed by Geshe Jampa Gyatso at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa (ILTK), Italy, it is the actualization of Lama Yeshe’s vision for a comprehensive Dharma education program inspired by and adapted from the traditional geshe studies at the Gelugpa monastic universities.

The Masters Program’s mission is to provide a full-time, in-depth education for students of the Tibetan Mahayana tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa that emphasizes the integration of academic, practice, behavior, service, and training components. In addition to offering students a profound deepening of their Dharma understanding and practice, the Masters Program aims to provide the FPMT with highly qualified Western teachers of Buddhist theory and practice.

Lama Yeshe’s aim, his wish in setting up this program, was to enable people to study and come to a deeper understanding of the Buddhist teachings, both the vast and profound, as well as sutra and tantra, so that they could then teach other people. His purpose was also to enable each person to develop his or her inner qualities, such as perfect love and compassion, to complete the six perfections, and to achieve final enlightenment. In this way they would be able to help other sentient beings by leading them from cyclic existence to the great city of enlightenment. It was for this purpose that Lama Yeshe asked me to teach this program.

–Geshe Jampa Gyatso,
The Birth of the Masters Program, Mandala, 1999

The full-time Masters Program at Nalanda Monastery, France

The Full-time Masters Program

History and Development | What the Masters Program Entails | Subject Completion and Program Completion | Graduation and FPMT Teacher Registration

History and Development: The first Masters Program, taught by Geshe Jampa Gyatso at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa (ILTK), Italy, reached its successful completion in 2004. A second Masters Program, taught by Geshe Tenzin Tenphel, Khensur Jampa Tegchok, and Geshe Jampa Gelek, was offered at ILTK from 2008 to 2014. It was completed in 2014 with a three-month review and final exams, and a one-year lamrim retreat, elements to complement the program that were added at Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s request. ILTK’s third Masters Program started early 2015 and is taught by Geshe Jampa Gelek.

Nalanda Monastery in France started its first Masters Program in 2013 with abbot Geshe Lobsang Jamphel as teacher.

Chenrezig Institute in Australia offered the MP subject Middle Way from June 2012 to mid-2014.

With the wish to implement the program worldwide, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has advised other centers to consider offering the Masters Program and has encouraged translation of the main texts into modern world languages other than English. Several Spanish and French translations of the MP main texts and commentaries have since been completed or are in progress. ILTK already offers the entire MP curriculum in both English and Italian.

What the Masters Program Entails: The full-time Masters Program consists of six years of study, three months of review with final exams, and one year of retreat. The program is taught by a fully-qualified Tibetan teacher assisted by experienced staff consisting of Masters Program graduates and FPMT registered teachers. Familiarity with Tibetan is not required but can be helpful. The program at ILTK is preceded by an optional Tibetan-language intensive.

Daily teachings are complemented by tutorials, fortnightly quizzes, discussions and student presentations, student-guided meditations, and written exams every three months. A one-month lamrim retreat completes each of the sutra subjects. Students arrange their own year-long final lamrim retreat.

Subject Completion and Program Completion: The criteria for subject completion include full participation in the academic, meditation, behavior, service, and training components with a minimum attendance in the various aspects of the program.

Subject completion and participation cards are provided at the conclusion of each subject. The Masters Program completion card records the subjects that were successfully completed in case a student withdraws from the program before its conclusion.

The Masters Program is concluded with a three-month review and final exams, which relate subject matter covered during the program to practice and provide integration and overview. An individual year-long lamrim retreat further ensures a deepening of students’ meditation experience and integration of the extensive studies.

The full-time Masters Program at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Italy

Graduation and FPMT Teacher Registration: The Masters Program completion certificate, the highest educational achievement within FPMT, is issued by FPMT Education Services upon completion of all components of the program. Masters Program graduates are eligible to become FPMT registered teachers at foundational and in-depth levels.

Graduates of the Masters Program have become teachers, interpreters, and tutors for Masters and Basic Programs in FPMT centers around the world. Several of them are translating Masters Program and Basic Program texts into various languages and others contribute to preparing Masters Program materials for publication.

MP Admission Requirements

Students may enter the Masters Program at the beginning of each subject. Center-specific admission requirements and an application procedure, including an interview, may apply.

General Prerequisite Studies: Having completed a systematic course of study such as Discovering Buddhism, the Basic Program, Maitripa College, or an equivalent program in another organization will count as an important factor for acceptance into the program.

Required Familiarity with Lamrim: Applicants should have at least one year of familiarity with the study and practice of the lamrim, and have a thorough experience and overview of the stages of the path as presented in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

The Basic Program subject Stages of the Path offered in centers provides detailed study of the lamrim. The subject STAGES OF THE PATH Middle Length Lamrim in FPMT’s Basic Program Online includes retreat instructions and guided meditations.

Support materials for lamrim retreats of up to a month are provided through the FPMT Online Learning Center as part of Basic Program Online. Several centers offer lamrim retreats from one to three months long as part of their Basic and Masters Programs.

Specific Prerequisite Study: The Basic Program subjects Mind and Cognition and Tenets are a mandatory prerequisite for admission to the Masters Program. While it is best to have studied these at a center, they can also be studied using Basic Program Online through the FPMT Online Learning Center or as part of Nalanda Monastery’s and ILTK’s online Basic Programs. Chenrezig Institute offers the subjects as Basic Program homestudy packages.

Tantra Prerequisites: Additional requirements pertaining to tantra need to be fulfilled in order to study Secret Mantra and Guhyasamaja Tantra.

My experience of the Masters Program has been extremely positive. My mind has been changing so much. Being in the Masters Program is a never-ending work on oneself.

–Masters Program graduate

I really enjoy the experience of living together with such an international group of students and practitioners who give much support to each other.

–Masters Program graduate

MP Curriculum

Ornament for Clear Realization (Abhisamayalamkara) | Supplement to the ‘Middle Way’ (Madhyamakavatara) | Treasury of Manifest Knowledge (Abhidharmakosha) | Commentary on Valid Cognition (Pramanavarttika) | Grounds and Paths of Secret Mantra | Guhyasamaja Tantra

The Masters Program curriculum consists of five main subjects plus one additional subject, together representing the essential teachings of sutra and tantra in the Gelug tradition. The subjects are taught on the basis of standard texts and commentaries.

Ornament

The Ornament for Clear Realization (Abhisamayalamkara) by Maitreya is a commentary on the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita) texts that serves as a support for understanding the profound teachings on emptiness. It includes a detailed explanation of the spiritual paths of hearers, solitary realizers, and bodhisattvas, together with their clear realizations and abandonments on the various paths. It discusses the precepts and methods for obtaining the meditative stabilizations, clairvoyances, signs of irreversibility, and qualities of buddhahood, including the thirty-two signs and eighty exemplifications, the four buddha bodies, and omniscience.

Maitreya’s Ornament is explained on the basis of The Commentary: Clear Meaning by Haribhadra and The Explanation: Ornament of the Essence by Gyaltsab Je.

Middle Way

Supplement to the ‘Middle Way’ (Madhyamakavatara) by Chandrakirti explains emptiness as presented by the Madhyamaka-Prasangika system of tenets. The main body of the text consists of ten chapters, each one associated with one of the ten perfections and one of the ten grounds of a bodhisattva. Study of this text leads to an understanding of great compassion and how it serves as a cause for generating the mind of enlightenment (bodhichitta). This text also sets out the various levels through which one proceeds to the attainment of the completion of all ten perfections and enlightenment.

Chandrakirti’s Supplement to the ‘Middle Way’ is explained on the basis of his auto-commentary Explanation of the “Supplement to the ‘Middle Way’” and Lama Tsongkhapa’s Illumination of the Thought.

Treasury

Treasury of Manifest Knowledge (Abhidharmakosha) by Vasubandhu is a vast description of the outer and inner world according to Buddhist cosmology—the various types of migrating beings, the six realms and their causes, the afflictions and their antidotes, minds and mental factors, the various types of spiritual practitioners and their paths, and the knowledges, concentrations, and absorptions.

The teachings on Treasury will focus mainly on the chapter presenting actions (karma) and afflictions and are based on the First Dalai Lama, Gedun Drub’s Clarifying the Path to Liberation.

Supplementary: Valid Cognition

Permission for the addition of Valid Cognition was granted by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for Nalanda’s and Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa’s current Masters Programs.

Dharmakirti’s Commentary on Valid Cognition (Pramanavarttika) is a fundamental treatise on Buddhist logic and epistemology, presenting the reasons that prove the possibility of past and future lives, liberation, buddhahood, and so forth through valid cognition (pramana).

The teachings on Valid Cognition will focus on logical inference and the establishment of valid authority, and are presented on the basis of Gyaltsab Je’s Elucidating the Path to Liberation.

Secret Mantra

Grounds and Paths of Secret Mantra is studied on the basis of either Kirti Losang Trinley’s or Ngawang Palden’s condensed explanations of Lama Tsongkhapa’s Great Exposition of the Stages of the Path of Mantra. The most important features of the four classes of tantra as well as the initiation procedures and particularities of deity yoga related to each class are presented, with emphasis on the spiritual grounds and paths of highest yoga tantra.

At the discretion of the teacher, the study of Grounds and Paths of Secret Mantra may require having received a highest yoga tantra empowerment from a qualified teacher. This entails taking the bodhisattva and tantra vows and the daily commitment of the Six Session Guru Yoga.

Guhyasamaja Tantra

This highest yoga tantra commentary offers a thorough explanation of the generation and completion stages of Guhyasamaja. The presentation of the generation stage includes an explanation of the visualization and generation of the mandala and deities and how to carry death, the intermediate state, and rebirth into the path. The presentation of the completion stage discusses the six branches: the isolation of body, isolation of speech, isolation of mind, illusory body, actual clear light, and the union of clear light and the illusory body.

The tantra of Guhyasamaja is studied on the basis of the generation and completion stage commentaries by Aku Sherab Gyatso, Sacred Words of Akshobhya and Nectar From the Mouth of Akshobhya. Lama Tsongkhapa’s detailed commentary on the completion stage, A Lamp to Illuminate the Five Stages, is used for reference.

In order to study this subject, one needs to have received the highest yoga tantra empowerment of Guhyasamaja from a qualified lama.

MP Homestudy

Masters Program Homestudy Options: ILTK’s Masters Program Online is offered in both English and Italian and is supported by qualified tutors. In addition to written course materials and texts, audio recordings of the teachings, videos of review classes, forums supervised by the tutors, and online quizzes and exams are included. The online course runs parallel to the residential Masters Program. A minimum of 20-25 hours a week are needed to reach a good level of understanding of the material.

Nalanda Monastery’s Masters Program Online has been offered alongside their residential Masters Program from September 2013 onward.

Chenrezig Institute’s Masters Program level Middle Way course is available as a homestudy package.

Admission Requirements for Masters Program Homestudy: If Masters Program Homestudy or Masters Program Online is offered and includes the certificate option, the admission requirements are the same as for the full-time program. Studying the program at home without the support of a daily structure and Dharma environment is demanding. It is essential for students to have a sufficient background of preparatory study and retreat.

Subject Completion and Program Completion: The criteria for subject completion include full participation in the quizzes and passing the exams, fulfilling the behavior requirement, and fulfilling the meditation requirement.

Subject completion and participation cards are provided at the conclusion of each subject. The Masters Program Homestudy completion card records the subjects that were successfully completed in case a student withdraws from the program before its conclusion.

Students who successfully complete all subjects qualify for participation in the three-month review and final exams. Upon completion of an additional final one-month lamrim retreat, students will be awarded the FPMT Masters Program Homestudy Certificate.

Graduation and FPMT Teacher Registration: Graduates of Masters Program Homestudy and Masters Program Online are eligible to apply for FPMT teacher registration at the foundational level. Once registered, they can teach Discovering Buddhism and introductory courses in FPMT centers upon request. They can also contribute in various other roles, for example, as interpreters and tutors for Basic Program in FPMT centers or as texts and course materials translators for the Masters Program and Basic Program in general.

MP Guidelines for Implementation and Support

FPMT Education Services extensively supports centers that are implementing the Masters Program by assisting with planning and scheduling, and in the preparation of publicity both for the entire program and for individual subjects. The Masters Program materials web page provides texts, translations, and collated study materials from past Masters Program cycles such as transcripts, charts, and class notes. The Masters Program Guidelines for Implementation clarify requirements and describe all components of the program in detail. Regularly updated, they consolidate experience and program development.

An Abridged Masters Program has been designed for centers interested in offering Masters Program subjects in a non-residential setting and without the rigor of the full-time programs. The Abridged Masters Program makes use of the materials developed by the full-time residential Masters Program.

For more information, please contact the FPMT Masters Program coordinator.

A Masters Program Report

The outcome of the Masters Program 1998-2004, and an Overview of the Masters Program 2008-2014 at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa – a report from the ILTK MP coordinator, October 2008

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